So, I've posted in a few threads and mentioned that the AI is now overly aggressive against city states.
This thread is not about that. It's about another apparent change, one that's not bad. I've found it harder to stay ahead in tech and culture than in vanilla and just attributed it to the research cost increase for techs/civics of advanced eras...
In my second game I had the Zulu as my neighbor, and after they tried to attack a city state I thought "No more Mr Nice Guy" and took them out as one does (which is probably always a good idead with the Zulu).
Now look what I found when I took Ulundi:

Spoiler:

I don't think I've ever seen such good district placement from the AI. The distance from the city tile also suggests that Shaka bought some tiles just to build the Campus there.

Also, Shaka has one of the coolest final messages when you defeat him.
"You may have ended my reign, but I will live on in your nightmares."

I still get a joint declaration of war against me from random people who have no grudge with me every 40 turns or so. They don't do anything becuase they're on the other side of the earth, I wait 10 turns, and then we peace out. I was hoping the new expansion would stop these annoying constant join wars on me.

So, I've posted in a few threads and mentioned that the AI is now overly aggressive against city states.

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That change dates to at least a patch ago, maybe more. In all my recent pre-R&F games city states have been dropping like flies. I don't mind increased AI aggression against them, but they should update the number of early units CSes build to improve their ability to defend themselves.

That placement is impressive indeed - I'm still wondering if the AI behaviour now takes maximising era score into account. If so it could have been prompted to place a campus there to get the era score bonus for having a high adjacency-bonus district.

Is the AI ever declaring war on other civ's outside of the too-frequent joint-war delcarations (that are more about the AI treating the joint-war as a trade good than it is about invasion)?

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You or someone else has asked this before, but in my experience it's never been an issue. In my last (pre-patch) game civs were endlessly declaring solitary wars on one another - China on Egypt, Persia on Rome, in multiple permutations. Early on Rome took several Chinese cities, though territory rarely changed hands in any later wars and the interminable Rome/Persia spats never resulted in anything more aggressive than a couple of units from one side moving into the other's borders. Even when I was assisting the Persians in an active attack on Roman Beijing the Persian units made no effort to attack the city.

There was the odd joint war, but one-on-one wars vs. powers of comparable strength were more common.

The AI seems to be doing a much better job of keeping up. I've also seen it using navies effectively (I almost lost a city to Lautaro's ironclads), putting cities under siege, using targetted spy missions to disrupt governors and spawn partisans. Overall the AI has seen a lot of improvement.

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York

The patch notes did say something about AI being better at pursuing adjacency. I've also seen them be less gung ho about religion (beyond the guys that are supposed to be zealots ofc) Maybe that's also behind them keeping up? If their flavor for HS get reduced next up is Campuses.

I'm so damn tired of those stupid joint wars that I'll download the mod that disables it for my next game. Current game, AI literally spams joint war. They'll peace out with one civ and instantly enter a joint war with a random other civ next turn. My friendship with civ X will end, and if I don't immediately renew it, they'll joint war me on next turn, even if we have huge positive modifiers. Bloody stupid.

Also, yeah what others said: AI will compulsively DoW city states next to them.

How is an AI bribing another AI to do a joint war any different from the player doing the same thing though? Seems fine to me, just deal with it and smash them both.

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I wouldn't mind joint war if AI seemed to give just a little consideration as to who they targeted. But they don't. In fact, it seems like any joint war offer has value to them to an extent that they'll offer YOU gold to make a joint war with them against a target that it's clearly in YOUR interest to attack.

I had a chance to watch Scotland in action against Geneva - for a long time, because the Civ V issue where the AI would bring only ranged units to the party has resurfaced.

The AI evidently produces many more ranged units than it did and attacks with larger forces - Robert had seven archers surrounding Geneva at one point (and more visible elsewhere). Geneva's response demonstrates that the AI does have the advertised capability to coordinate fire, though it still can't coordinate ranged and melee attacks - when it had two ranged units it would use them appropriately to focus on a single target, and the Scottish archers did the same in return when there was an archer outside the city. Geneva had a ranged unit garrisoned at all times and used it every turn (though this was a city without walls, and walls seem to mess with garrison behaviour or did in past patches). Most impressively, when Geneva had a severely damaged archer outside the city and a healthy one inside, it switched their positions to conserve both units as best it could.

The downside is that Geneva was a pointless Scottish target - it was well within my borders and doomed to flip within a few turns of being taken, as it finally was. The AI could at least have recognised that and razed the city.

City-state massacres were a thing in the last patch or two, but it does seem they may have been ramped up even further - probably more a result of the new coding that supposedly helps the AI take cities than any change in AI aggression.

No-one has declared war on me yet in my current game. This certainly doesn't match up with my past experiences, but I am playing Prince, and I normally play King, so the apparently lower aggression could just be down to that. It's also pretty early in the game still, and my neighbours are Chandi (who has just forward settled me) and Shaka (who has just taken La Venta which borders my third city) so I'm sure my time will come

Poundmaker has just declared war on Hattusa. He's sent three(? possibly more, can't see the full area) units over, including two archers, but may very well not take it as the city is bordered on one side by mountains and on the other by the ocean, with only a couple of land tiles to attack from.

The City States start with walls mod was one of the best mods I had. Made sure that city states don’t get bum rushed early and are actually around by the mid game. Wonder if it will work with R&F cause it worked flawless with vanilla

Is the AI ever declaring war on other civ's outside of the too-frequent joint-war delcarations (that are more about the AI treating the joint-war as a trade good than it is about invasion)?

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It's in my game. Tamar wants Pericles head on a spike and she might actually get it. She already declared war twice, got cities both times. Spain declared war on Brazil (or it was Brazil on Spain?), no joint wars so far,only one on one.. I'm chilling behind some mountains, entertaining the idea of saving Péricles' neck if it come to that.

Is the AI ever declaring war on other civ's outside of the too-frequent joint-war delcarations (that are more about the AI treating the joint-war as a trade good than it is about invasion)?

Click to expand...

I mean, yeah, I had a very early Formal War from Spain in my 2nd game as Zulu. We started very close to each other and he rushed me with a lot of units. Of course I saw this coming and had plenty of slingers with Archery 1 turn away from finishing and insta-upgraded to an Archer swarm to defend, but it was an actual Formal War, not a Joint War. Scotland apparently will give you an agenda warning if your neighbor declares war on you though.

I'm in the middle of a knight timing attack on deity and have been fairly impressed with AI defense, they seem a lot better at picking off injured units.
I've taken 2 cities and almost run out of steam, they have victor in one of the remaining cities which puts it way out of range for my knights. I'll sue for peace and see if loyalty pressure can finish them off.

I've still got that feeling the game is already won though, have to wait for late game and see if they are better at pushing victories